


Solipsisms and Sensibilities

by PrettySerpent



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Akuze, F/M, Gen, Sole Survivor
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-07
Updated: 2016-11-06
Packaged: 2018-08-29 13:57:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 652
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8492392
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PrettySerpent/pseuds/PrettySerpent
Summary: A detailing of the lives of the crew throughout Mass Effect 2 and beyond.





	

It was the moments she remembered as the Normandy burned. She ran through the ship, ordering people onto the escape pods, forcing herself past the bodies of the fallen crewmates as they lay on the deck, eyes glassy and staring into nothing. She had to get to the cockpit. 

Liara had begged her to leave, but she couldn't leave Joker. She knew he wouldn't leave the Normandy, knew, like she would, that Joker would give his all to give the crew a second more to escape.

It felt like an eternity, crossing the bridge, looking out the gaping hole carved in the side of her ship, exposing its heart, exposing her, to space. The planet below looked peaceful and serene, parts of the Normandy already burning up in it's atmosphere. It looked a little like Noveria, sort of white, and it made her think of snow, and Liara, and the loss of her own mother. She was gladly Liara would escape, glad it that Wrex had gone back to Tuchanka, that Tali had gone with Garrus on a supply run. They would live. 

Her heart was pounding as she broke through the gravity field protecting the cockpit.

"We have to go, now!" She yelled, trying to keep the fear out of her voice and succeeding. All there was in her tone was rage. 

"I can still save her!" Joker cried, but they both knew it was futile. She reached down, ignoring his pained cry, and lifted him forcibly out of the chair. He grumbled as he limped, supported by the commander, to a pod tha could have easily taken another three of her crew.

"Come on!" He yelled as she pushed him inside. But in that moment, she turned, looking for any signs of life, looking at the behemoth vessel boring a laser into the heart of her ship, she felt her own heart break before the laser severed a pipe and the ensuing explosion knocked her across the gangway. 

"Commander!"

She grabbed onto the opposite wall and saw Joker, alarm and grief etched on his face. In the split second it took her to turn and reach the emergency shuttle release, she felt a dark pull in the pit of her stomach, like she had eaten something rotten. Her chest hurt, her eyes swam as he screamed her name.

"SHEPARD!!"

She watched as he seemed to reach for her, her open hand slammed the release and ejected his rescue shuttle out into space. He would be safe. He would make it, him and Liara. She felt so numb, watching helplessly as the laser tore the Normandy in two, spinning her and spacing her. She could see Joker's escape pod, and could almost make out his capped head before a piece of debris tore out her oxygen tube. The scream she would have screamed was lost to the vacuum of space and she frantically struggled, trying without hope to save herself, closing her eyes and praying that her pilot would not have to watch her die. Not like this. This couldn't be it, not after Saren, not lost to space like this. She couldn't get a breath, her chest was on fire. Her hands clawed at her helmet, she knew she was suffocating and falling towards the planet. If she didn't choke to death, she would burn up in the atmosphere. 

Jane Shepard stopped struggling. She remembered the feeling of triumph as she climbed the rubble after defeating Saren. The look on Liara's face, the wonder in her eyes. The grin from Anderson, the tilt of Garrus' head. Tali's soft embrace, the hard slap on the back from Wrex that had knocked the wind out of her lungs. She had saved the Galaxy. The entire expanse of her space.

She was dead before she entered the atmosphere, her final thought was of the darkness, the eternity in the eyes of an Asari.


End file.
